YAP Proposal #201: Food security through innovation (Jamal Musah, Ghana)

I am Jamal Musah from Kumasi-Ghana, born in 1989. I am C.E.O of Amandze farms company limited; an agribusiness venture which adopt and apply conservational agriculture technique into crop farming to help end hunger and achieve food security as well as alleviating poverty through youth and women empowerment. My telephone number is +233243303423.

My project will address the issue of food security caused by post-harvest loses due to climate change and quality control management in the Ejura District of Ghana as well using ICT to provide extension services to local farmers at their doorstep.

Ghana currently loses maize worth about Ghc 700,000 every year as post-harvest loses due to climate change and lack of market.

The project will establish a low cost but effective plant to help shell, clean and dry maize produce in the village of Ejura District of Ghana before storage. A low cost weather station and mobile application will be designed to provide weather information to local farmers in their local dialect. This will help local farmers to plan and know the best time to plant and harvest their produce.

Selected women in the village will be trained on maize quality control to undergo the process to help add value to the produce. When this is done maize produce from other local farmers will be aggregated to be shelled, cleaned, dried and stored.

A distribution model will be established to transport the aggregated and added value maize to ready markets.

I got motivated for this project because I am a farmer who works with other local farmers in the deprived communities and I have been able to see and feel the cause of poverty in the deprived farming communities as a result of post-harvest loses.

This project will help me add value to my farm produce and that of other local farmers in the community. It will also promote economic development in the community.

For the project to be successful I will collate and apply the concerns of the local farmers in the solution, I will also make sure the information of network of local farmers are included in the data base, my team and I will train recruited women to understand the process of operation to ensure efficiency and effectiveness.

As part of the solution to promote food security and alleviate poverty, my team and I do recruit women and youth to work on our farm. We also do provide capacity building training to local farmers on sustainable agriculture. Building of storage facility is also on progress to help store the added value maize produce from my farm and that of other local farmers. Provisions for part payment is being made for the plant to help shell, clean and dry the maize produce from the community.

The success of this project will be measured on the availability of quality maize ready for sale and consumption after harvest, the increase of farmers yield as the result of extension services made available through ICT and the income generated by local farmers who are benefiaries of this project.

The $5000 grant will be spent as follows:
half payment of plant (50%4500) = $2250
local weather station (2 pieces @$500) = $1000
web server = $600
solar panel = $850
Installation of plant = $300.

Blogpost and picture submitted by Jamal Musah (Ghana) – jamalghus(at)gmail.com